European press review

The Council of Europe report on CIA rendition flights and prisons in Europe is the main headline-grabber today.

Most papers agree that the document is thin on evidence, but chide European governments for being willing accomplices to human rights abuse.

J'accuse

"The Council of Europe has gone out on a limb without being able to supply real facts," laments Germany's Die Welt.

The Council of Europe report - published yesterday - says 14 European countries colluded with the CIA on rendition flights.

Under the CIA policy of rendition, prisoners are moved to third countries for interrogation. There have been allegations some were tortured.

The daily adds, however, that there are many "indications" that the investigators are on the right track.

It feels it is reasonable to suspect that many states did indeed allow operations on their territories which would have been "unthinkable" before the 11 September attacks.

The public rightly hopes for a bit more from a special investigator's report than a detailed press review on the issue Frankfurter Rundschau

"But there is no room for such compromises when it comes to protecting fundamental human rights," it states.

Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau thinks the conclusion that there are indications, but no compelling evidence, of German collusion is "a bit thin".

It takes the report's author, Dick Marty, to task for relying on US press reports for some of his findings.

"The public", it says, "rightly hopes for a bit more from a special investigator's report than a detailed press review on the issue."

"An extremely unsatisfactory result," it concludes.

But Austria's Die Presse says the lack of hard evidence is no reason to dismiss the report's findings as "the states concerned had no particular interest in supplying Marty with information".

"But the affair cannot be swept aside by pointing to a lack of proof," it adds, because there are "many documented individual cases" which show that the CIA kidnapped suspects.

"This was only possible thanks to the help of European colleagues," the paper believes.

'Helping hand'

"Europe gives the CIA a helping hand" concurs a headline in France's Liberation.

"Does the war on terrorism justify violating that which provides the basis and the legitimacy of a state based on the rule of law?" asks an editorial.

"No, replies the Council of Europe and it's a salutary warning."

The daily states that "we start off by closing our eyes. When we open them again, it's to find there's blood on our hands."

Switzerland's Tribune De Geneve explains that the European countries accused of complicity in extraordinary rendition succumbed to "friendly pressure from the Americans" and signed up for the war on terror.

After all, it says, "It's for a noble cause that the sole superpower commits the odd minor fault here or there, the inevitable collateral damage of a war without a face."

For Swiss daily Le Temps, Europe's apparent complicity is made worse by the reaction of the countries named in Senator Marty's report.

"That they should then believe they have been 'libelled' because the truth cannot be contained about people their decisions may have led to torture," it notes, "is not longer a matter of cynicism but of lies of state."

Crossfire

The report's most serious charges are levelled at Poland and Romania, where Mr Marty says there is enough evidence to support suspicions that CIA secret prisons were established.

Romania's Curentul believes that the country needs allegations on involvement with CIA flights like a hole in the head.

"After articles in the American press on the abuse of handicapped children, after the State Department report placing Romania on the European route of human trafficking, another blow to the image of our country is being dealt at a critical moment."

Romania, vocal but uninspired, is in this context merely a collateral victim Gandul

"And all this at a time when Romania is bending over backwards to rid itself of the red or yellow cartons obstructing our path to EU integration," it laments.

The paper reports that the government believes that the report is of a 'speculative nature', and that 'launching allegations without evidence is unacceptable'," while MPs see Mr Marty's charges as having "no real basis, although they are harmful to the image of the country".

Another Bucharest paper, Gandul, believes Romania is an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire between European powers and the US.

"Romania, vocal but uninspired, is in this context merely a collateral victim."

"The Marty report has generated a storm on the political and diplomatic level in Europe, which will not calm down easily," the daily laments.

Romania Libera is somewhat less pessimistic.

"If the illegalities prove true, the EU could theoretically suspend the voting rights of the state guilty of violating the Geneva Convention banning torture," which in the case of Romania could delay its EU accession on human rights grounds.

"But such an outcome is rather unlikely, because of a lack of clear evidence," the daily concludes.

Firing line

Spain's El Pais says the lack of any concrete proof in the report "has allowed the majority of the governments implicated in it to flatly reject the charges".

The Spanish foreign ministry, the daily notes, "has 'emphatically' denied that Spain took part in these operations actively or passively".

The European governments named in the report "have lost credibility regarding the defence of human rights, which were undermined by these flights", says the daily.

But the worst outcome, it concludes, is that "Europe has been the USA's accomplice in this outrage".

Spanish daily El Periodico agrees.

"Not only have the young democracies of Eastern Europe supported the Bush administration's plans", it says, but also "some democracies that are older than the USA have followed suit."

The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.